Wednesday was the first night at the Cat Club. The day was a bit of a clusterfuck, but finished off OK.

First of all, my disc order arrived, and I, in my usual fashion, tried to incorporate it right then. This wouldn't be so bad, except that the Cat Club thing was a benefit starting at 6:00pm. And I'd never worked there before. Given an hour's commute, and a minimum hour and a half for setup, that would mean leaving the Duplex at 3:30pm.

I started texting potential ride companions at 3:00pm, since both She Who Shall Remain Nameless and tankgirl had expressed an interest. I finally got loaded up and ready to go at a little after 4:00pm, and got a "getting ready" text from the Unnamed on the freeway just as it was almost too late to turn off and pick her up.

Then I waited for her to rush out of her house, only to find she was fiddling on her laptop inside. Why? Because the AT&T/MetroPCS text interface sucks, is why - my message registered as arriving at 4:00pm, and she figured she had plenty of time to prepare.

So, in the end, we didn't get back on the road until nearly 4:45pm. And, in fact, didn't park at the Cat Club until 5:45pm, 15 minutes before I was supposed to start.

Needless to say, I got going a little late. Like an hour. And things weren't quite set up right. For one thing, their tech guy wasn't there, so there was no-one to explain that, for some reason, the channels on the board with cables attached to them were the bad ones. Then, when I got things hooked up, I started getting bass feedback from hell (I've never had bass feedback like that before, ever. Weirdest effect.). Some rather violent manipulation of the EQ later, followed by the unplugging of a speaker that was crackling, and I had the sound almost reasonable.

Then the tech guy showed up. I discovered this when he turned off my sound in the middle of the show. Then he complained that the gain on the channel I was using was maxed. This is, indeed, a problem, but hard to tell when the friggin' knob is missing. Then some BS about not confusing the High EQ knob with the gain (huh?). Then we had a nice little EQ war between him in the booth, and me on my board.

Needless to say, I'm not thrilled with him, and he's completely disdainful of me.

And now I was back to having bass feedback from a crackling speaker.

I did what I could with the sound, and had it back to halfway decent at about 9:00pm. Then it sorta went to shit on its own - I suspect the wrong filters timed out on my feedback eliminator.

Anyway, on the social side of things, the evening at least started out as a benefit for Debra Walker's campaign. You can even see a bit of my equipment in this account. Because that's, y'know, what you'd be looking for in pictures.

As the campaigners started to fade, a number of my regulars showed up, namely the Joshua/Grace group, jannypanlj, and Anita. I had a pretty strong rotation going at 10:00pm, at which time Eric wandered over from the back, and said "By the way, we're closing at 10:00 tonight."

Umm, OK. I got one guy (Marcus) up to sing who'd been waiting for 40 minutes or so, and shut down.

I started to coil up my cables an' such, and the afterparty started. This time Patrick only fed me two half-shots and a G&T, so I was OK by the time we got out of there, which was about 1:00am. I spent a lot of time talking to Alethea, one of the bartenders. It's always entertaining talking to someone who used to teach statistics, but decided there was more money in the service industry. She says she's from New York, but given the accent, I'm pretty sure she's more specifically from Long Island.

Patrick paid me a hell of a lot more than I expected, and then we took the long drive south.

Thursday was exciting because The Indescribable One had a job in Berkeley that evening. I spent the afternoon finishing off the disc incorporation job from Wednesday, drove her to Berkeley, then zoomed back down to the bar, and got set up only 15 minutes late. For a rather amazingly busy night.

I managed 4 rotations, but only because there was enough time between 1:30am and 2:00am for the fourth one.

38 individual singers (though one had to leave just before her song came up), many of them people I'd never seen before. It was cool, especially since there was a lot of dancing. We actually had several hours of sugarbare, which was awesome, but also Elana and Denise's group, Albert, ajayav, the Alex group, Hex, twitchet, dionuse, Matt H, lucydogstringer, and, most oddly, Gia.

Gia was apparently having withdrawals, since there was no Tuesday show, came by, and stuck it out for two songs. I introduced her to a few people, but she mostly hung around the booth, since I was the only person she knew.

It took me forever to shut down, cuz I wuz tired. Of course, I was supposed to go pick up The Stranded One in Berkeley when I was finished, but I couldn't raise her (and the guy whose apartment she was at was driving through the Central Valley when I called him), so I went to April's with the group (there was a group), and then headed home to collapse.

This was all made more complicated by the fact that I didn't know when The Impoverished One's phone service was going to cut off.

Of course, as soon as I got home, I got a text from her, so I headed back up the 880. Got halfway before I had to take a nap.

Picked her up, got her back down here, got her to the bank, then she took me to IHOP.

Fun, but I didn't get to bed until 10:00am. On the other hand, I didn't have anything scheduled for Friday.

Woke up a bit at 3:30pm, to find a message from onyx101 asking for help moving. Given the speed at which I was moving, it was relatively impressive that I got there by 6:00pm. The movers had done the bulk of the job, but there was still quite a bit to do - and we got maybe two thirds of it done. Two full loads of genuine_snark's truck, anyway.

Then she took me out to dinner at the Outback with Geo. I think I held up my end of the conversation. I know I didn't pass out in my food, at least.

Then home, and blessed sleep. I got up Saturday around 1:00pm, futzed a little, and headed off to my afternoon party. It was due to start at 5:00pm, and I actually got there on time, and was ready to go by 5:00! I was shocked.

Interesting group. I gather most of them belong to the same church choir (Amber, my contact, is a minister or equivalent. The house - and the funding - belonged to her dad, Gary), and they're also avid karaoke nuts. They apparently mostly hang out at Effie's and the Peacock Lounge.

And if several members of the group aren't openly gay, something is terribly wrong with my gaydar.

I was engaged for three hours, and more if they felt like it. At 10:00pm, Gary told me we'd keep going until the police showed up.

At 10:30pm, the police showed up, and we shut down. Some guy two blocks away had complained.

It was a really fun party, even if I had some feedback issues I don't quite comprehend. But then the reflection patterns were a bit complicated in that space.

I'm hoping the extra $200 on the check was an enormous tip, and not a mistake by a tipsy host. I'd really like to do another party with them.

Deposited the check, anyway.

The bizarre connection of the night was Rocky Bob, who used to come to my show at Creekside. Still a very odd man, though at least now he's wearing a toupee that more or less matches his hair color. Used to look like a chestnut tribble was eating his head.

What with coiling cables, carrying everything through the house, and waiting for the cars on the driveway behind me to leave, I wasn't out of there until midnight. And immediately went to my bank.

Then some Denny's (I think I may be addicted to their grease), home, and more sleep.

Right now I'm supposed to be at my parents' place for a few hours, just to verify that I still exist. Suppose this means I should go get in the shower...

The church choir? Those are my peeps, I know and love them all. And yes, James, Andrew and Michael are definitely gay (if they are who you meant). It's the United Methodist Church (I believe) on Winchester at Hamilton, and they are fantastic people. I'm glad you enjoyed working for them!